Greg Zeschuk (back) and Ray Muzyka

Don't call them sirs, call them doctors. Far away from the hubbub of Silicon Valley, former family physicians Dr. Ray Muzkya and Greg Zeschuk now call Bioware their home in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Housing 73 employees in a single office, Bioware is perhaps best known for last year's memorable RPG Baldur's Gate. Although the world of Dungeons and Dragons is a far cry from practicing medicine, the story of these two MDs is proof positive that building games is just as much about passion as it is about experience.

1. If there were one moment from gaming you'd put in a time capsule to represent the 20th century of interactive entertainment, what moment would it be and why?

EXCLUSIVE: Neverwinter Nights

Greg and Ray: There are a lot of priceless moments that we can remember. We chose to focus on two of the best moments from games we have played.

1. Hearing the three beeps in Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Apple II, IBM) as you checked out the sign next to Werdna's lair (it still brings a shiver down our spines) and read the simple words: ***The wizard is ***. Now, that was a powerful game - simple black-and-white line drawings for the 3D walls, simple four-color sprites for monsters, and all the text (what little there was) in capitals - and yet so compelling to play and so much fun. Wizardry was the first real CRPG we ever played, and it warped us (in a good way) forever after.

2. Doom - We remember the very first level in the game. Our first impressions were mistaken: we recall seeing a really pretty intro area, which was thought to be a static bitmap initially ("Sheesh," we thought, "Where's the action? Is this some kind of adventure game"). At least, that's what we thought until we turned around using the arrow keys and just about fell out of the chair from sheer, joyful shock. We saw stairs and an imp in the distance on the left, a shotgun nearby, openable doors in the center distance, a blue pool of water on the right - all in glorious 3D color. Magnificent. All amazing to watch and play on a 386-DX40 with 4MB RAM and a state of the art 14-inch monitor. Shooting barrels, flipping switches, and firing chain guns was never so good as this. What a revolutionary game.

Next: Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (cont.)